What You Can Do To Protect Your Personal Information
Reading Time: 3 MinutesLast Updated: August 21, 2024
Note: The Social Security Administration is providing the below information as a public service following reports of a data breach that is unrelated to SSA’s internal systems and data, neither of which has been compromised.
With various reports of data breaches involving Social Security numbers in the media, we’d like to remind you about the importance of protecting your personal information. Someone illegally using your Social Security number (SSN) and possibly assuming your identity can cause many problems.
What to do if you suspect your Social Security number has been stolen
Identity thieves can use your SSN and other personal information to apply for loans and credit cards and open cellphone and utility accounts in your name. If you believe your information has been stolen and you may be a victim of identity theft, you can:
- Visit IdentityTheft.gov to make a report and get a recovery plan. IdentityTheft.gov is a one-stop resource managed by the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency. Or you can call 1-877-IDTHEFT (1-877-438-4338).
- File a police report and keep a copy for your records in case problems arise in the future.
- File an online report with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov. Its mission is to receive, develop, and refer cybercrime complaints to law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
- Notify 1 of the 3 major credit bureaus and consider adding a credit freeze, fraud alert, or both to your credit report. The company you call is required to contact the others.
- Equifax at 1-800-525-6285.
- Experian at 1-888-397-3742.
- TransUnion at 1-800-680-7289.
- Regularly check your credit report for anything unusual. Free credit reports are available online at AnnualCreditReport.com.
- Contact the IRS to prevent someone else from using your Social Security number to file a tax return to receive your refund. Visit Identity Theft Central or call 1-800-908-4490.
To learn more, read our blog, Protect Yourself from Identity Thieves, and our Identity Theft and Your Social Security Number publication.
What else can you do to protect yourself
Create or sign in to your personal my Social Security account to check for any suspicious activity. If you have not yet applied for benefits:
- You should not find any benefit payment amounts, and you should be able to access your Social Security Statement and view future benefit estimates.
- Review your Statement to verify the accuracy of the earnings posted to your record to make sure no one else is using your Social Security number to work.
If you receive benefits, you can add blocks to your personal my Social Security account:
- The eServices block prevents anyone, including you, from viewing or changing your personal information online.
- The Direct Deposit Fraud Prevention block prevents anyone, including you, from enrolling in direct deposit or changing your address or direct deposit information through my Social Security or a financial institution (via auto-enrollment).
You’ll need to contact us to make changes or remove the blocks.
Other ways to safeguard your information
- Don’t carry your Social Security card with you. Keep it at home in a safe place. Be careful about who you give your number to.
- Change your passwords regularly and use a unique password for each account to prevent hackers from accessing multiple accounts if one password is stolen.
- Add an extra layer of security to your online accounts by using multi-factor authentication, which is a sign-in process that requires a password plus additional information.
- Be wary of scammers pretending to be Social Security employees. If you get a suspicious call, text, or email about a problem with your Social Security number or account, ignore it, hang up, and don’t respond! To report the scam and to learn more, visit Protect Yourself From Scams.
You’ll find more tips at our Fraud Prevention and Reporting page.
Please share this important information with your friends and family and post it on social media.
Did you find this Information helpful?
Tags: data privacy, fraud, scams, Social Security card
See CommentsAbout the Author
Dawn Bystry, Associate Commissioner, Office of Strategic and Digital Communications
Deputy Associate Commissioner, Office of Strategic and Digital Communications
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Jae
Isn’t it up to the Social Security Administration to see that our information is safe? They should be the ones taking steps to prevent hacking.
Cathleen
As long as entities such as social security and others store our information online they will continue to be hacked and our information stolen. I can protect my information until the cows come home and it doesn’t matter!
My social security number was stolen in a government website hack and was used to obtain a drivers license by someone in a different state. I was notified through fraud alerts with a credit reporting agency. Beyond notifying you there’s NOTHING else that can be done. Social security doesn’t give 2 hoots about it.
I deleted my online social security account and use only paper for everything on my end now.
What we do on our end doesn’t matter as long as entities like social security continue to store our information in the cloud and online! Stop trying to blame WE THE PEOPLE FOR YOUR FAILURE TO SECURE OUR PRIVATE INFORMATION AND DATA!!
The less information you supply to government agencies, NGO’s , healthcare agencies etc the better. Refuse to supply anything online and always request PAPER for everything. Do not supply your social security number to your doctors or dentists office. My information has been stolen from both.
My post comes on the heels of finding out that United healthcare has been hacked. A hack that will affect many millions of Americans. They have not yet notified members.
My data has been stolen almost 10 times in the last 5 years!
I no longer supply an email address to anyone. I reiterate, USE PAPER FOR AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ! Nobody was was being hacked before entities started storing stuff online!
Hey social security, STOP trying to gaslight us into thinking somehow we are responsible for our personal information being stolen!
Brenda B.
I agree, I don’t use the wallet on my cell nor do I scan barcodes presented on programs to purchase whatever they’re selling. I had this cell just one day when the first breach happened. I was at the hospital waiting for treatment. It has happened again and again. I keep thinking about my Driver’s license. Our gov wants it online. How stupid is that?
william
Well nowadays to protect personal information from internet is difficult because simple people don’t know phishing techniques. Thanks great article it will really help people regards william
Alla V.
I am an 86 years old US Citizen. I received a letter from SSA NEW UTRECHT DISTRICT OFFICE (New York) about the phone interview. The letter shows my old phone number. I called many years ago and asked to update my phone number. For some reason the phone is not updated. I am unable to visit office because of my age. I am unable to create an account online. Could you please email me fax number and/or email, where I can email/fax my current phone number. To prove my identity, I will email the scan of all supporting documents – my SSN, Passport, bills, phone bill. Please help.
Thank you.
Peter
From this Aug 21, 2024 article by Dawn Bystry, under What else can you do to protect yourself
She states:
If you receive benefits, you can add blocks to your personal my Social Security account:
The eServices block prevents anyone, including you, from viewing or changing your personal information online.
The Direct Deposit Fraud Prevention block prevents anyone, including you, from enrolling in direct deposit or changing your address or direct deposit information through my Social Security or a financial institution (via auto-enrollment).
Which sounds good, but no amount of searching reveals how I can place these blocks on my account!
It does state:
You’ll need to contact us to make changes or remove the blocks.
So presumably I’ll need to call the SSA 800 number or visit the local SSA office?
APRIL S.
Hartsville South Carolina and Lamar South Carolina and Florence South Carolina and Darlington South Carolina and United States and Child Tax Credit Monthly check CTC and 2,000 and 3,000 age15 and age13 and 4th stimulus check and 1,700.00 and SSA and SSDI and SSI and 1,400.00 and P-EBT K-12 and 391.00 and 🇺🇸 🙄
Siempo
Like so many others, your process is useless. My PI has been exposed and sold to Dark Web 4 times in the last 2 years. You allow sale of our data as if we were slaves to be bartered?
Quacy M.
The social security office or US Social Security Administration at location 1871 Rockaway Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11236 and phone number 1- 800 772-1213 or 1-866-667-7342 want me to do illegal prostitution with them for my ssi money is why they gave me the worker the Asian worker to ask about my payee money that I need another instead of giving it to me the sole owner. I don’t need a representative
Quacy M.
this is one of my links that can help that is connect with us or external websites
https://youtu.be/JW3oKZUzC5M?si=HqugNe95x-rmiqpc
APRIL S.
South carolina and United States and SSA and SSDI and SSI and 1,400.00 and 4th stimulus check and 1,700.00
John D.
Why is the onus on ‘We the People’ to fix government mishaps? Private companies should NEVER have been allowed to store ANY critical private data in the first place! This is a complete failure. What are YOU doing to course correct? /We/ didn’t /get/ our data stolen, /YOU/ failed to provide /protection/ from thieving. What is being done about it?
Linda A.
Read the news. The SSA has nothing to do with the breach. Unfortunately, these criminals are moving so fast in stealing our information. This is nothing new. If you had contacted one of the credit bureaus to put a freeze on your account quite a while back when this info was available. Complaining like you are doing now is a waste of time.
Mary R.
Good Morning, My question is Is there a way I can add a pin or password to my number or maybe put a freeze on my SS number????
Creativity
I like this question.
Jar o.
You can lock and unlock your social security number by creating an account at https://myeverify.uscis.gov/
Make sure the first thing you do is check to make sure that website actually has https on it as well as the little lock at the top and the word .gov to show it is an actual government website.
Once you create the account you can go there to proceed to lock your social security number. This will prevent anyone, including you to get a job with any employer that uses electronic background verification and will also prevent anyone from applying for benefits in your name. Keep in mind that if you go to get another job or apply for benefits you will need to temporarily unlock your social security number to apply.
Jay
Jaro, I was wondering about the same thing about myEverify, will it lock my SSI account from benefits being taken or just employment verifications, etc? Thanks for your thoughts
Jay
Good luck Mary, I’ve been going through this for over two weeks now after I was informed via email from H&R Blocks Tax Shield that I buy with my taxes every year. They informed me of someone’s using my SSI# on the dark web. I’m in the process of signing up for the 3 credit bureaus and putting locks on my credit. Also I’ve been trying to get in contact with the SS Admin to put a lock on my account as I don’t want my benefits for retirement in 5 years to get stolen. The robot voice gave me phone numbers to call (they said up to 3 hour waits and then got hung up on), websites that I can log in with my SSI account and have gotten me nowhere. Just today I filed a fraud report with the Federal Trade Commission which I’m sure will go nowhere as well. Also they said to file a police report because if the person using your number is wanted for a warrant for arrest they may come after you for the crime. Yay!!! lol The gov. definitely don’t give a dam about us.